Texas Education Policy

Texas officials say the new Texas Education Freedom Accounts program, signed by Gov. Greg Abbott in May 2025 with an initial $1 billion in state funding, has received more than 118,000 applications as of Friday, making it the largest school-choice rollout yet in the United States. Abbott administration spokesperson Eduardo Leal said more than 42,000 applications were submitted on the first day alone, calling it the biggest day-one response to any school-choice program in the country, with the application window open through March 17. The education savings accounts give families state money to spend on private or non-zoned schooling, injecting new competition into Texas’ K‑12 landscape and posing enrollment and funding challenges for traditional public districts, particularly in big cities already losing students since the COVID‑19 pandemic. The American Federation for Children Growth Fund says it spent nearly $2 million marketing the program in Texas and is touting the oversubscribed demand as proof that school choice is a top-tier policy priority for parents, while critics warn it could drain resources from public systems, especially in rural areas. The rollout follows a bitter intraparty fight in which Abbott threatened and backed primary challenges against Republicans who opposed vouchers or education savings accounts, signaling how central school choice has become inside the GOP.